There's a new south indian restaurant opened at the location of the old Dosa Hut in Penn Hills. It is called Udupi Cafe and belongs to the chain having restaurants in Boston and Long Island. The cook is authentic, (from Udupi) and the food is excellent. Check it out.
Pittsburgh, PA
New South-Indian restaurant
Someone wrote: > There's a new south indian restaurant opened at the location of the old > Dosa Hut in Penn Hills. It is called Udupi Cafe and belongs to the chain > having restaurants in Boston and Long Island. The cook is authentic, (from > Udupi) and the food is excellent. Check it out. I will second that review. The food was excellent, the service was very personal, the server took the time to explain things to us, and why they opened a location in Pittsburgh. The channa baruta, a chickpea curry with a deep fried bread was truly delectable. A mild warning though, much of their menu seems to be either fried or oily, so be prepared. Lastly, I was quite surprised by the prices. The above mentioned curry was only $4, with an average price of $3-4 for everything. Definitely a quality meal for a very good price. Andy ---------------------------------------------------------------- Andrew B. Mor [email removed] Robotics Ph.D. Student office: (412) 268-1416 Robotics Institute, CMU fax: ??? http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~abm
Elizabeth N. wrote:
This restaurant sounds great. Can anyone give us directions from the
CMU area? We would really appreciate it.
Elizabeth Newlon
The road is Old William Penn. It's the road that is off to the left
as you travel the Parkway East from the closest Monroeville exit
to the furthest.
two sets of directions:
1) first monroeville exit, turn left at the first light (rodi).
take the next right. this will become old william penn
shortly (it may be called McCrady). stay on this for
several miles (4ish). after you pass through a small tunnel
(train overpass), the restaurant is on your left.
non-descript small building.
2) go pass the first monroeville exit. take 48 *north*, this is
haymaker rd. at the first light, turn left. you're now on
old william penn. stay on owp for about 3miles (this is a big
guess). after you round a sweeping right hand curve, the
building is on your right. easy to miss from this direction.
if you hit the train overpass. you've gone too far.We just made it to the Udupi Cafe and it definately gets 2 thumbs up. My experience with Southern Indian food is limited to what I have cooked myself or had at friend's houses, that aside, I really enjoyed what we ordered. We picked items that we have never had at an Indian restaurant. Given that we eat at the Taste of India about every 2 weeks, it was great to see totally new dishes. And I think it will take us about 10 more visits to try everything. The food was well prepared and not that greasy ( I was one of the people complaining about Lemongrease...I mean Lemongrass *wink*). If you order fried food there will be grease on it, the problem is when everything is greasy and that was not the case here. The ghee used on the potato filling of the Dosi was just right. Also being vegetarian I would like to emphasize that this is a completely vegetarian restaurant. It is nice to be able to order anything and not have to ask if it contains meat. (Though I neurotically did ask if there was meat in the soup, old habits are hard to break.) Finally, this is a "no frills" kinda place, the plates are styrofoam and the cups plastic but the prices definately do NOT exceed $4, so I'm not complaining. The service was great. We really liked the man that served us. Though there is only one person on the tables and when the place filled up he was extremely busy. Elizabeth & Andrew
Elizabeth N. wrote: > > We just made it to the Udupi Cafe and it definately gets 2 thumbs up. Where is this? I'm not a huge fan of Indian food, but generally haven't liked what I've had in Pittsburgh. However, I ate at the Bombay Palace on K St (about 1900 K St.) in DC for lunch today, and it was some of the best Indian food I'd ever had. Warning - it's very pricey, and the waiters are really condescending. *** Laurie D. T. Mann ** [email removed] *** ******* http://www.city-net.com/~lmann ******** **** Please note new E-mail and home page *****
Ok.. this is yet another positive review for the restaurant. I went there for dinner tonight with a friend: we were the only ones there thru our meal, though a party of five did walk in just as we were leaving. Pity, because this place is excellent. Since South Indian cuisine is my "home" cuisine, and my friend was new to it, we ordered a few things on the menu and split it. The owner caught on very quickly and suggested some changes in our order so that we could sample a few more dishes.. a nice touch. We split some rasa vadai (a donut-shaped fried appetizer made from rice and lentils, soaked in a spicy-sour thin soup), dahi vadai (aforementioned donut soaked in yogurt, with spices and topped with cilantro)and idli (steamed rice cakes.. a must for the purist). The rasa vadai was served piping hot, which was welcome given the temperature outside, and the rasam (soup) was pleasantly spicier than I expected. The idlis were soft and the accompanying coconut chutney and sambar (thick spicy lentil soup with veggies) were good, too. For a main course, we split an order of Mysore Masala Dosai (rice crepes with a spicy chutney and potato-onion filling) and Rava Dosai (a wheat-crepe made with onions and cilantro). The latter especially was a welcome find on the menu: it is considerably more difficult to make than "regular" dosai, and was cooked to perfection to boot. The Masala Dosai was perfect too: crisp without being crumbly. These were served with coconut chutney, sambar, "kara chutney" (spicy-hot chutney made with red chilies), and "mulagai podi" (dried red chilies, ground and topped with melted butter): a very nice touch, and made the meal very authentic. All of this was washed down with Mango Lassi. The portions were generous, and the total bill was $16.06. Talk about a bargain! The owner is very friendly and gave us the impression that he genuinely enjoyed our business, which made our dining experience that much better. The ambience is better than where Sree's was when they started. Your plastic cutlery is in a wicker tray at your table, and there are pitchers of water at your table. Some particulars: their address is 4141 Old William Penn Hwy, and their phone number is 373-5581. (To get to Old William Penn Hwy, take Exit 14 off I-376 toward Monroeville, take a left at the light and then the first right. You're on Old Wm Penn Hwy. This place is a few miles down a long and winding road, just past a tunnel.)